Dan In Real Life is about a man whose love for a woman threatens to tear his close-knit family apart. If this doesn’t sound familiar, it should. The plot reeks of The Family Stone, which is just the most recent example in a long line of holiday brouhaha movies that date as far back as The Big Chill. Lucky for director Peter Hedges, Life has a mostly witty script and two actors who are capable of delivering it. Steve Carell and Dane Cook ultimately keep the movie from rotting in plot unoriginality. Still, the feared cliché label waits precariously in the corner.
Dan (Carell) is a father and a widower who writes a well-liked parental advice column. The only problem is that his theory doesn’t quite translate into practice. Not that he’s a completely incompetent dad, but let’s just say that his kids wouldn’t present him with a father of the year trophy. Anxious to find love again, Dan meets and falls for Maria (Juliette Binoche), who turns out to be dating his brother, Mitch (Cook). This drama is boxed into a two-story house over a holiday weekend with a family that partakes in festivities that put my family’s ritual of watching the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving to shame. All the makings of a powder keg in place, jealousy/hilarity/heartbreak ensues.
Aside from Carell and Cook, the film lacks the colorful family members that made The Family Stone work so well. Where Dan In Real Life has a leg up on its filmic twin is with the lead acting; Carell’s socially awkward shtick is better than anything Dermot Mulroney can do as an actor. Carell may have as much character range as Stephen Hawking has athletic ability, but who cares when the one character he does do is so damn funny? He still has many repeat roles he can pull off before descending to Ben Stiller depths.
Five Stars
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